Africa must dig deep into innovation
Emphasis on mineral resources has left the continent vulnerable to economic cycles Special to Gulf News
the developing countries that are increasingly the markets for these goods.
Some of these treaties take away the very possibility for African countries to join global value chains, impeding their development.
Biggest folly
This is precisely why Africa’s biggest folly is to believe that mineral resources and other raw commodities are automatically a source of wealth. This misconception is why Africa is the world’s richest continent in terms of resource endowments, but at the same time the world’s poorest in terms of income per capita.
Africa’s future competitiveness and prosperity lie in the opportunities afforded by science, technology and innovation.
From Nairobi to Lagos and Johannesburg, innovation hubs are springing up. This is not surprising. It is the modern rebirth of Africa’s ancient talents in science, evidenced in the pyramids of Giza, the astronomy of the Dogon tribe in ancient Mali, and the caesarean sections of 19th-century Uganda.
Africa’s leaders in the public and private sectors have an opportunity to clear the policy bottlenecks that have prevented the commercialisation of African inventions, especially in large economies such as Nigeria, South Africa (which has a more advanced innovation policy than the rest of the continent), and Kenya.
Innovation must be deployed to costeffective, competitive manufacturing and service industries.
The commodity downturn need not stop Africa’s development. But if lasting prosperity is to be achieved, today’s challenges must be regarded as an opportunity to reset the trajectory of the continent’s economies on a truly transformational path.
The writer, a former deputy governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, is Professor of Practice in International Business and Public Policy at The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University, and is the author of Emerging Africa: How the Global Economy’s ‘Last Frontier’ Can Prosper and Matter.